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meandorla · 3 years ago

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Pleased To Meet You, chapter 14

Summary: Now Frankie has the answer he sought, what will his reaction be? And how will you navigate your relationship with him, and with Benny? Time to make some decisions.

Pairing: Frankie Morales x French fem!Reader.

Rating: Explicit 🔞

A/N: Please no one screams at me for this chapter 🫣 I cannot be held responsible for these two and their bad decisions. Additional note at the end to avoid spoilers.

Unrelated of sorts, I have been so close to giving up lately and deleting the whole thing. I shouldn't be telling you that, and I only am so that I can properly thank @frannyzooey @nicolethered @dreamymyrrh and @pedrorascal for their love and support. Ladies, I love you more than words and I can never thank you enough for cheering me on 🧡

And then there's the case of you, @meandorla my dear. I love, I love, I love you, I want to hug you and squeeze you so hard it hurts. I was stuck and couldn't start, and you saved my life 🧡 And then you worked your beta magic, despite you-know-what. I am SO grateful for your patience, your support, for making me laugh and for helping me make this story better with your big wonderful filthy brain 🧡

End of sap.

Word count: 7k (sincere apologies)

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Chapter 14: Love is Blindness

The pebbled skin of his neck.

The room feels oddly silent, as if in the aftermath of a natural disaster, or a car crash, undisturbed but for the sound of your solitary, ragged breathing.

The dimple of his smile.

You draw in another drag, long and deep. Ashes are sent flying when you lower your hand to rest it on your knee, twirling briefly before they land on your denim. You don’t brush them off, staring at it emptily, looking without seeing.

The wrinkles at the corner of his eyes.

You draw harder on the next one, oblivious to the crackling sound from the burning stub. It’s raining again, sparse raindrops falling onto the beige carpet underneath the opened window. The chill air wafting in feels incongruous when the sun shone bright and cheerful just over an hour ago. But you’re not cold. In the small of your back, the press of his splayed hand lingers, warm and righteous.

The gray strands in his patchy beard.

How will you shake off that vision? The tension in his frame and the tick in his jaw as he glared at that piece of paper. You didn’t want to tell him. He didn’t need to know. What good could possibly come from that knowledge? All this loss. All this mess. Because of a fountain pen and the fucking rain.

The situation was easier to handle in the immediate aftereffects of seeing him again, back when you feared his resentment, and you chuckle bitterly at the irony. You know better now. You can’t stand his heartache. It is crushing you.

The unpleasant smell of the burning filter brings you back to the room. You put it out in the coffee cup balanced on the windowsill and grab the pack of cigarettes, and the lightness of the box makes you wince.

You stare into the empty pack for two minutes, as if this might conjure up an extra one.

What do you want?

You know what you want. But you can’t think of one outcome in which getting what you want wouldn’t result in him losing his best friend, if not all of his friends. Your heart’s only desire, at arm’s length. But you will not put him through that.

What you need now is to decide whether you want, or rather can live with the current status quo. Or if you are prepared for the alternative. Because breaking up with Benny would mean losing so much more than just Benny. It means losing Will. It means… it means losing him.

You clench your eyes until flashing white dots start dancing under your eyelids, fighting unproductive thoughts of your own failings. You need to move, make a choice and act on it, and you know who could shake you back into focus. You can’t imagine it's going to be pleasant, but you need to move. It’s been long enough.

You unlock your phone, press on the green Phone app, and swipe down to reach the top of your favourites list. You’re about to press on Rosie’s name when an incoming call punches the air out of your lungs. You consider sending it to voicemail, but that’s another return call you’ll have to make, so you might as well get ahead of it.

“Hey baby,” Benny’s happy baritone feels like shattered glass in your ear.

“Hey,” is all you can articulate.

“What you’re up to, tonight? You coming home? I thought we could watch Don’t Look Now.”

This was your life, three months ago. Your wholesome, happy routine. Not quite perfect. But nearly complete.

“Oh I like this movie,” and the regret in your voice is sincerer than he will ever be able to comprehend, “but I can’t, I’m meeting with Rosie. For dinner.”

You regret not having had the time to call her first, and you’re hoping she won’t be working. And willing to see you after your deplorable behaviour on her birthday, followed by your guilt-ridden silence.

“Oh, ok,” his disappointment trickles through your chest like cold water, “You wanna come after? You’re taking a cab, right? You said you would.”

“I’ll take a cab but I think I’ll go home. To my place, I mean,” you wince at the unnecessary precision.

“Ok, baby.” He pauses, and his voice is uncharacteristically quiet, hesitant, when he adds, “I miss you.”

“Miss you too,” and you clench your eyes again, this time at the empty lie. “You should still watch the movie. I’ll call you tomorrow morning.”

“Ok. Have fun.”

You lower your phone, about to hang up when you hear his voice again, “Hey baby, everything ok?”

You need to move.

—

The doorbell is still ringing when Rosie swings the door open, her lean figure seemingly taller than usual, certainly taller than you feel standing small on her doorstep. An eyebrow raised over her dark eyes, the left corner of her mouth curled up in disapproval, she has yet to open the screen door, which you knew better than to do yourself.

“There she is! The elusive librarian,” she crosses her arms over her chest, her strong shoulders accentuated by the black tank top she’s wearing, and her annoyance fills the doorway. You’ll have to earn your way out of the doghouse.

“Ok, ok, I come bearing gifts,” you say, raising the plastic bag you hold in your right hand.

You swung by her favourite Thai place, an impressive detour between your apartment and her house, and an effort she acknowledges, finally pushing the white frame of the screen door and stepping to the side to let you in.

The house is a classic, two-story building on Terrace Ave, with a large living-room to the front, a bow-window overlooking the street, and a kitchen to the back, opening on a small lawn. The first floor is divided between two bedrooms and a comfortable bathroom that she had entirely renovated before moving in.

Rather small by American standards, the house is gigantic for your Parisian paradigm. After breaking up with Éric, you had not been able to afford anything bigger than a 25m² studio apartment, despite making a decent living. You are immensely proud of your friend for achieving her dream of becoming a home-owner, something her mother couldn’t have imagined for herself.

The house is well maintained, the fake brick façade pristine and the lawns trimmed on a regular basis, but the interior presents a starkly different aspect. Rosie has many qualities, tidiness not being one of them. In all fairness, her job doesn’t leave her much spare time, and you don’t blame her for not wanting to spend it cleaning around. She has professionals come over to mow the lawns, clean the gutters, check the roofing. But you've known her long enough to acknowledge, not without a certain tenderness, that she’s always been like that.

The living-room is overcrowded with mismatched pieces of furniture, cross stitch cushions, photographs, and all sorts of disparate objects. Clothes and magazines are scattered across all surfaces. You kept the place organised as long as you stayed with her, but it had returned to its natural state the minute you had left.

You follow her into the kitchen and set the table while she unpacks the food containers, sheepishly declining the beer she offers you with an appraising glare.

Aside from some appliances, such as the microwave and fridge, Rosie chose to leave the kitchen untouched. The 1970s furniture and wallpaper create a comforting atmosphere, evocative of the early 1980s movies you love and grew up watching. Sitting in there with your best friend, you usually don’t feel a day over 18, giggly and carefree.

Which is yet another thing that seems to have been irremediably altered by the recent turn your life has taken.

The amount of food you bought is ridiculous, especially with the current state of your appetite, and especially because Rosie cannot be bothered to hold a grudge for too long, but you figured that a satiated stomach would lend a kinder ear to the necessary conversation that is to follow.

She’s the first to initiate small talk, speaking with her mouth full of rice noodles, thawing both the air between you and your heart. You’re not sure if you deserve her clemency, so you don’t stall any longer and gather the courage to speak, at last.

“Hey, Rosie, listen. I’m sorry I ruined your birthday. I behaved like an idiot, I know I don’t do well with tequila and I-” you trail off before you’re tempted to lie about accidentally get yourself in that state, but your words are sincere when you add, “I hope you can forgive me.”

You put your chopsticks down and look her in the eyes, so she knows these are not meaningless words.

“Look it’s fine,” she says after a brief pause. “If anything, it’ll make a fun memory I can use to guilt you into doing stuff.”

You chuckle feebly, knowing she’s not done.

“It reminded me of our trip to Berlin. Remember that one? I was a fucking mess and you put up with me. I never said sorry for that,” she continues, and you accept the implied apology with a nod of your head. “You know you can talk to me, right? If something’s wrong, I mean. I know you miss Paris. I know I got you to come over here, if ever you-“

“Oh Rosie, no,” you interrupt her hastily, “I like it here, I mean it’s fine, I don’t regret coming. It’s just that-“

Here it is. All of a sudden, you realise you haven’t prepared for this conversation, and you have no idea how to present her with the situation. You’re not even sure how you feel about the fucking situation.

“I saw him,” you blurt out bluntly.

She shakes her head at your cryptic statement, and you understand there is no scenario in which you can present yourself in a good light, coming clean so belatedly about something you should have shared with her months ago, so you keep going, throwing yourself into it.

“Frankie. I saw him when I went with Benny to that bar, to meet his friends. He’s-” you draw in a short breath, “he’s Benny’s best friend.”

Rosie sets down her fork on the table and leans back against the padded back of her wooden chair, her smart eyes narrowed at you.

“Well, that must have been an awkward conversation.”

It is you, in turn, who visibly fails to comprehend.

“With whom?” you murmur, and she leans forward with a sharp glance.

“With Benny? Your boyfriend? Surely you must have told him that you fucked his buddy twenty years ago? Or that Frankie guy did?” Something plays across her face and she suddenly softens. “Oh, is that what it is about? Did Benny dump you?”

You open your mouth and close it immediately. The clatter of your teeth resonates in the silent kitchen. Rosie’s nostrils flare in anger when you shake your head and answer, “He doesn’t know.”

“You got to be fucking kidding me!” she exclaims, throwing her palms upward in the air, “You’re telling me neither of you told him anything?”

“Fifteen, actually” you mutter, rooted to your seat, “sixteen in July.”

“What?”

Her voice sounds at least an octave higher, and you should know better than to speak again, yet you hear yourself say, “Not twenty years ago, it’ll be-”

“Oh for fuck’s sake!”

“Listen,” you try, “I know I should have told you before, but I think you’re-”

“Not me, dumbass,” and you grimace in agreement, “your boyfriend! And what’s the plan, here, now?”

You straighten up uncomfortably on the rigid bench. You expected her to get somewhat irritated, but you didn’t anticipate this heated outburst.

“Well, that’s the point, Rosie, I’d like to talk it out with you.”

The request backfires immediately, fanning her wrath, and she stares at you in disbelief, her eyebrows shooting to her hairline.

“What is there to talk about, exactly? You’ve been with Benny for a year,” this time you don’t risk correcting her on the timeline. “Are you seriously even considering throwing it all away for a one-night stand you had with a random guy twenty, or whatever years ago?”

Rhetorical as it is intended to be, the question, and its formulation, shocks you out of your numbness.

“That’s a real low blow, Rosie, you know damn well it wasn’t a one-night stand, and it certainly wasn’t a random guy,” you emphasise your words with your index pointed in her direction, which only raises more hell from her.

“Oh wake the hell up, will you? This guy’s a fantasy! You don’t even know him anymore, if you ever even knew him!”

She stands up abruptly, her exasperation uncontainable, and starts pacing the tiled floor in front of the table, while you remain pinned between the table and the wall to your back. “You know Benny. Benny’s good, you said so yourself. Aren’t you happy with him? You’re seriously telling me you’re willing to jeopardize that for what, for a dream?”

“It is not a dream, Rosie, it was real, it is real,” you insist, raising your voice, “when we were together this morning everything was just the same, it felt right and-”

“Excuse me, you did what, this morning?”

She stops her pacing abruptly and faces you, staring at you incredulously from across the square table, but you withstand her glare, sitting up straighter. You exhale through your nose and roll your eyes exasperatingly.

“Chill, ok, nothing happened. I tried to buy a car, and he came with me for advice. And it was Benny’s idea, I’ll have you say!”

“Oh well then, if it was Benny’s idea, then I guess it’s fine!” she scoffs. “Jesus, do you fucking hear yourself?”

This entire conversation is getting out of hand. Being with Frankie was never an option for you, but somehow you’re miserably failing to tell her as much. You never performed well in confrontational situations, your breaking point is just a few words away, before your defensiveness gets the better of you and you start throwing names. You can’t risk losing your best friend, your sister, over this mess.

“Look, I came to you for help. I need to find a way, to do something about it, I don’t know what, but this is not helping me. You’re not helping me,” you say, appealing to her friendship.

Much to your dismay, her wide eyes turn glassy as they fill with tears. She grips the back of her chair with both hands and leans in closer to you, speaking in a low, restrained voice you struggle to recognise.

“Don’t you come here and tell me shit about helping you. Do you know how I found you, three years ago, before I dragged you here? The state you were in? The state you put yourself into? You don’t seem to realise, but you go so far, you retreat so far within yourself, and I, I have to live with the fucking fear that one day I won’t be able to get you back.”

Her words ring out in the room, burning your skin as if she had just slapped your face. Slowly, purposefully, you push away from the table and stand up, to the sound of the ticking clock on the wall.

“I don’t want to sound ungrateful, Rosie, but I never asked for your help,” you start in a low voice, your anger and outrage barely in control. “You provided it on your own accord. I’ve been alone my whole life, and I do not need anyone’s help, not yours, not Benny’s, not anyone’s. It is my choice and my problem if I want to- to live isolated.”

Less than a minute later you’re storming out of the house, tumbling down the flight of stairs and rushing in the direction of Kennedy boulevard to catch a bus. For once, you really wish you owned a car, but you’ll have to ride the Jersey City public transportation with a sniffly nose, reddened cheeks smeared with mascara, and a brow creased in anger, or fear, or despair. Who the fuck knows.

You’ve never fought with Rosie before. You’ve never fought much, with anyone, except maybe for Éric, and of course your mother. You want to stop and sit on the curb, pull out your phone and write down everything that has just happened, because in a short while, the words will be lost to you. All that will be left, all that your brain will let you access will be a collection of indiscernible feelings, Rosie’s manifestly unjustified albeit immediate anger, and how, in reaction, you kicked over the traces.

You turn on Kennedy boulevard in time to see your bus drive past the stop and you curse loudly in French, ignoring the woman next to you who stares you down, as she tightens her grip on the handle of her kid’s stroller.

This is uncharted territory to you, both in your relationship with your friend and in your personal life. Aside from political matters, you’ve never felt this strongly about anything, and have certainly never been this collected and assertive in your argument. You’re not sure what you were defending back there, your perception of personal freedom, or the reality of your connection with Frankie.

You reach the bus stop and ponder waiting there, but there will be at least half an hour until the next one and you can’t stay still for that long. Instead, you choose to walk to the deli next to the bookstore to get cigarettes. A long walk, but you don’t care, you’re unsure why but you want to speak French with the Moroccan grandpa who works there.

What you said is untrue. An ugly lie. People have helped you in the past, whether you would like to admit it or not. Rosie of course, and Dolores, countless times. Laura, your former boss, although to be completely fair, in most cases it was just your competency being rewarded.

But you know what Rosie is referring to. Your preference for aloneness. Throughout the years, you’ve proven yourself capable of making friends, albeit very few. Will stands out amongst them, giving you space with an almost uncanny instinct. Shielded behind your smile, you were unanimously appreciated in your former job, by superiors and colleagues alike, for your bright, amiable personality. An exhausting lie, at times, when you remain, in truth, unable to fully trust anyone or to commit yourself.

Because the most uneasy relationship you’ve ever had is by far the one with yourself. Your interactions with the world are challenging, at best. The torment subsides when you hide within you.

You don’t know if your mother is to blame, either for rejecting you or because you inherited this trait from her, and in any case, you couldn't care less, because it’s who you are, and at this point in your life, you’re finally at peace with forever treading on the edge.

And also… And also because there is one place where you didn’t feel the need to hide. Where none of it mattered. One place where you were able to let go, almost instantly. Where you were not asked to be anything more than what you wanted to be. Than what you could be.

Perhaps Rosie would understand, if you’d given her the chance, if you tried to explain. But you highly doubt that.

You know of only one thing that can quieten your mind, turn the raging ocean inside you into still waters.

The pebbled skin of his neck.

You’re going to need alcohol to get you through this night.

—

Situated on the fourth and last floor of a brick building on the corner of Seaview Avenue and Old Bergson Road, your apartment is graced by the first morning light from winter through autumn. A convincing argument of choice for any realtor, and your personal hell.

Presently, the blazing sun of the first day of summer inundates your bedroom, burning your eyeballs through your closed eyelids. Your groan of discomfort drags you out of sleep and you resurface to a state of semi-consciousness. You try to flick your eyes open and you take in the pillow, where the right side of your face is crushed, an unpleasant dribble of saliva pooling at the corner of your opened mouth.

There’s a sharp pain in your spine, from lying heavily across the bed on your stomach, on top of the undone sheets, your back unnaturally curved inward. The same position you were in when you passed out around 2am, fully clothed.

An old AC unit sits idly on one of your bedroom windowsills. Already broken when you moved in, you never had it fixed, being used to life without it in Paris. On days like today, however, you come to regret your dismissal. If the sweat beading in the dip of your lower back is anything to go by, it’s going to be a hot one. But that might also be the whiskey.

Some apartments in the building have fire escapes. Not yours. Which was fine as long as you didn’t feel the urge to take up smoking again. The three living-room windows are cracked open, but the lingering smell of cold tobacco makes your stomach lurch dangerously.

You stretch your left arm and reach for the night stand, blindly fumbling for your phone, which you hope is somewhere nearby.

You’ve just put your hand on it when the ringtone startles you. Your body recoils in surprise and a new bolt of pain shoots through your back. You struggle to get up on your hands and knees with a hissed “Putain,” your head throbbing lightly, each one of your muscles sore.

The screen is illuminated with the caller’s picture: Benny’s smiling face, the pine trees of Harriman State Park in the background, your favourite photo of him that you captured three months back, at the very end of the winter.

8am. He’s setting out for his morning run. You’ve managed to sleep longer than usual.

You let the call go to voicemail, staring at his picture with a cocked eyebrow, and when your phone falls silent, you get off the bed and undress, get out of the bedroom and walk naked across the living-room into the open kitchenette. You pour yourself a tall glass of water that you chug down greedily, followed by a second one. The voicemail notification tinkles, but you pay it no mind, dialing Benny back instead.

As always with whiskey, your hangover is mild. Your mind is strangely acute, your ideas sharper than they’ve been in weeks. Asserting what you want, at last, has lifted that dead weight off your lungs. Even if what you want is out of your reach.

“Hey baby,” his voice sounds different, you notice it immediately. Devoid of his natural cheerfulness.

“Hey, what’s up?” you croak, and you hold the phone away from your face long enough to clear your throat.

“Listen, yesterday I went-“ he starts, before cursing under his breath and asking, “sorry, how was your dinner with Rosie?”

“Good,” you lie reflexively, increasingly intrigued by his unusual behaviour.

“Cool. Yeah, yesterday I went out with Fish for drinks-“

Blood rushes out of your face all the way down to your toes and leaves you swaying on your feet.

“And we talked about some stuff, and anyway, he says you can’t sleep? Because you didn’t hang the curtains?”

You are frozen where you stand, your mind reeling with the implications and potential consequences. With the mental image of these two men, talking about you over drinks.

“Hey, baby? You sill there?”

“Yeah,” you swallow the lump in your throat, “yeah, I wake up early. And the street lights kinda bother me, at night,” you add in earnest.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” the reproach is palpable in his low voice.

“Why- I didn’t think it mattered. I spend most nights at your place, anyway. Why- why is it important?” you ask tentatively.

“Because I’m your boyfriend, I’m supposed to take care of you.”

You bite down your retort. Now is not the time to argue that you can take care of yourself. You did not, in fact, get around to hanging these goddamn curtains. Besides, you’ve got enough clairvoyance to understand that this is not what this whole conversation is really about.

Perhaps because of your silence, he seems to relax a bit, and his voice sounds warmer when he asks, “Can I come by after my run? I’ll do it quickly and then we could have lunch together?”

You rub your eyes with weariness, and stare at what’s left of yesterday’s makeup smeared over the tips of your fingers.

“Sure. Sounds great.”

You hang up and start the coffee maker before stepping into the small adjoining bathroom.

In the shower, the scalding water eases the tension off your shoulders and revives your sore limbs. You let it run over you for a long while, some of your anxiety running with it down the drain, before washing your hair and scrubbing your skin raw, and when you exit the bathroom, cleaned up, perfumed, and wearing fresh mascara, you almost feel like yourself again. Whoever that may be.

You drink your coffee while dressing and begin to tidy up the apartment, starting by airing out the place. Clouds of dust fly out of the paper bag when you pull out the plastic packaging. Perfect. Now you’ll also have to vacuum the carpet. You unwrap the curtains and stack them neatly on the small coffee table in front of the couch, sorted in two piles. The colours you’ve picked are still to your liking two and a half years later, you’re happy to find, a dark yellow mustard shade for the living-room, and charcoal gray for the bedroom. The curtain rods are standing by the kitchen counter, against the wall, and you swipe them clean with a rag.

You empty the contents of the cup you use as an ashtray into the trash can, grimacing at the smell, and proceed to your bedroom.

You stand hesitantly by the bed. You should probably change the sheets, but you don’t want a pile of dirty laundry lying about. The weekly trip to the laundromat is an aspect of this life you can’t get used to. It’s not about the time you spend there, quite the contrary. It’s the incongruity of sharing such an intimate appliance with complete strangers. Your washing machine is probably what you miss most from your Parisian life. Sorry, Orsay.

When your doorbell rings an hour and a half later, you've just finished brushing your teeth. You take a deep breath before swinging the front door open and nearly topple over in surprise.

Frankie is standing in the doorway, his broad silhouette backlit by the corridor’s fluorescent neon bulbs. His head cocked to the side, his eyes instantly find yours from under the brim of his cap, his jaw tightly clenched.

“What are you doing here?” you murmur, but your body doesn’t question his presence, and you move away from the threshold to let him in. He steps inside briskly, closing the door behind himself and turns around to you, a hand extended in your direction asking you to remain calm, and you notice a bulky case hanging from his left hand.

“I’m with Benny, he's parking the car,” he whispers hurriedly, “he dropped by earlier to borrow my drill but he says he doesn’t know how to use it.”

You hardly suppress an annoyed sigh before Frankie’s eyes set on the empty pint of Black Bush standing tellingly by the trash can behind you. You follow his gaze, and exhale an exhausted “Merde.”

His eyes return to you, an eyebrow raised in a silent question, and his obvious concern feels like ants crawling over your clean skin.

Your brain swivels, searching for a reassuring lie, but once again, you don’t feel like you need to lie to him, and you don’t want to. So you simply shrug.

Stepping closer, he crowds you with his height and breadth, standing close enough that you can smell the detergent from the faded black t-shirt he’s wearing inside out, close enough that you can see the dip between his collarbone and the pebbled skin of his neck.

“Look, half an hour and I’m gone. I promise to be as fast as I can. It’s my fault,” he adds, and his hand moves forward, as if to run his knuckles over the exposed skin of your arm, but he catches himself and stops half an inch short.

Your eyes are pleading when you look up at him, your carefully crafted composure crumbling under the scrutiny of his soft, brown gaze.

“You’re not the problem, Frankie,” you whisper shakily.

“Yea, I know. I know,” he husks, and you can hear the “baby” missing from his phrase.

Approaching footsteps echo in the corridor and he quickly moves away from you. You hurry past him to hide the empty bottle inside a cabinet.

As you let in your boyfriend, as he kisses you voraciously, Frankie averts his eyes, turning his attention to your living space.

The small room certainly is very luminous, with its three windows lined up on the opposite wall to the entrance door. He easily identifies the prints hanging between each of them: Tina Modotti’s interpretations of the Mexican Revolution, which he immediately recognises because they are Izzy’s favourite works. He notices the old turntable on top of a vintage cabinet and the small collection of vinyls on the rack underneath it.

On the door’s left, against the adjacent wall, a gray, beaten up but comfortable looking sofa fills up most of the room. It’s surmounted by another large print, Berenice Abbott’s New York At Night, another of his sister’s best-loved pictures he can name without hesitation.

On the opposite side of the room from the kitchenette, wooden shelves frame the door to your bedroom and cover the entire wall from floor to ceiling, seemingly threatening to crumble under the colossal weight of an impressive number of books. He can make out exhibition catalogues, and what looks like fiction, paperbacks and fancy leather-bound editions.

In front of each cautiously lined up row of books are photographs, most of them ancient, tintypes, autochromes, and other curious photographic objects, alongside colour photographs he’s dying to take a closer look at. The display reminds him of Will’s office, a room he’s only ever been in once.

You fit in perfectly with the two Miller brothers, the kinship undeniable, and with the same sincerity with which he promised you to be fast, mere minutes ago, he promises himself that after this, he will let you be. Get out of your life once and for all. For real, this time.

His eyes linger for a moment too long on your bedroom door, cracked open just enough so that he can see your bed, made with pale blue linen. A memory blurs his eyesight, whirling across his mind. A vision of you, folding his white sheets, in the orange bedroom.

“Frankie?”

“Yea?” he turns around to face you.

You’re standing behind the kitchen counter. Benny’s lost into you, mellow with fondness, standing behind you with his hands on your waist, breathing in your hair. As if he were the one whose life had been stripped of your presence for too many years. He places a kiss at the base of your neck, and you keep your eyes trained on Frankie. The air stills. The silence rumbles between you.

“Coffee?” you repeat in a little voice.

He nods quietly and Benny asks if you have something else. One thing he doesn't like about you is your coffee, too strong for his taste.

“Can I use the bathroom?” Frankie asks suddenly.

You indicate the door behind you. Once inside, he locks himself in.

Frankie’s moving fast. This is his only chance. He has to find it. He runs the tap and, avoiding his tensed reflection, he opens the mirrored door of the cabinet above the sink. There are very few medicines, nothing stronger than ibuprofen, and some plain-looking lotions and creams. Most brand names look French, and he briefly wonders how you manage to source them here. It can’t be easy. It can’t be cheap. He pushes away the implied meaning, the disheartening thought that you might feel constantly homesick.

A tall, rectangular glass bottle catches his attention: your perfume. The label reads “Chanel n°19 Poudré”, and he makes a mental note of the name as he takes off the cap to smell it. It’s close, but it’s not it.

Benny’s laughter rings out on the other side of the door. Frankie moves faster, opening a couple of bottles, to no avail. He throws a glance at the bathtub. Three bars of soap lie on an enamel soap dish near the shower faucet. He nearly drops the first one, still wet and slippery from your earlier shower, but he hits the mark on the second. A woody and spicy smell, a manly fragrance, the one he thought was Benny’s.

He flushes the toilet and comes out. Benny’s already crouched over the opened drill case and he’s about to go join him when you hand him a mug of steamy coffee. He knows he doesn’t need to ask, knows it’ll be to his taste, no milk, no sugar.

He grabs the mug by placing his hand underneath it, avoiding your fingers, and thanks you in a hushed tone.

The room is blazing with the mid-morning sun, the heat already barely tolerable. The drapes will help with that too. He starts fumbling in the case for the right drill bit when a sudden thought darkens his eyes. He glances at your bedroom door, sticking his tongue inside his cheeks, and ponders his next move.

“I think the ¼ inches are enough,” he tells his friend, handing him the long piece of metal, “I’m gonna go check the wall in the bedroom.”

You watch him as he crosses the room in two long strides, with a resolute gait, his t-shirt pulled taut across the plane of his back, highlighting his dorsal muscles, and your entire body goes numb.

He’s careful to shut the door behind him, and makes a beeline to your bed. In an hurried but deft motion, he lifts off his cap and grabs the pillow with his other hand, burying his face into the cottony fabric. He inhales deeply, madly, and his shoulders sag in relief.

It’s here. At last. It’s this, your distinct and unique powdery scent, he recognises it now, as the memory of it comes back rushing, flooding his senses. He can’t let go. Doesn’t know how. It’s the crook of your neck and the crown of your head, it’s the inside of your wrist and it’s your inner thigh. It’s that faint fragrance laced with his own on a sunny and warm Sunday morning in July.

How does he come back from that? Now that no doubt remains as to your feelings and your truthfulness.

A fountain pen, and the fucking rain.

Your voice. Your voice, once again, brings him back.

When he steps out, Benny and you are standing by the window to the left, you just brought him a can of Ginger Ale.

“So what,” you start, doing your best to sound as casual, as playful as possible, not a trace of reproach in your tone, “you really don’t know how to use a power drill?”

“No, no, I know how,” he answers with a bashful chuckle, before pointing at his friend, “but he has a Makita. Those things cost a fortune. He’ll kill me if I fuck it up. Right Fish?”

Frankie doesn’t raise his head but answers with a quick smile.

“And I want to do this right, for you,” Benny adds with a sweet, eager smile.

You can’t help but return that smile, reach out and brush a strand of blond hair off his forehead.

Frankie didn’t lie, half an hour is all that it takes for them to complete a task you’ve postponed for over two years.

You stay on the outside as you observe them work, listening to the low, round humming sound of Frankie’s voice as he occasionally gives directions. This is a different side of them, one you never got to see until now, far from the happy gatherings, the teasing jokes and the thunderous, tipsy laughs.

The two men move in tandem and with acute focus. You read the years of shared experience in their tacit coordination. Their language is their own, spoken without words, weaved with knowing glances and understood nods. And soon, you’re left with the unsettling feeling that you are trespassing on something with a level of intimacy that shouldn’t be shared with you.

You don’t follow them into the bedroom. You simply sit and wait on the couch, resigned and tired, chasing away the thought of Frankie’s hair curling around his ears, of the droplets of sweat beading on his nape, of the tangy taste of them.

The result is far beyond what you had expected. You never doubted their handiwork would be any less than irreproachable, but it’s something else. Benny draws shut all three thick drapes to test their efficiency, and the room is plunged into near total darkness. They tie the room together, give it a cosy, homely atmosphere that had been missing until now. All of a sudden, it’s a home. Your home. It feels like you’re settled in at last. Like you are going to stay.

Melancholy washes over you, tinged with apprehension, and you feel your chest tightening a bit. Benny jokes light-heartedly about staying at your place more often, and Frankie’s eyes instinctively fly up to you from where he’s kneeled, arranging the screws and pegs back in their square compartments in the case.

It’s like a reflex, something almost beyond his control, the way he wants to get up, stand close behind you and shield you from it. But from what, exactly? This is your life. The one you’ve chosen. And he promised you, if not himself, that he would leave you be.

Your first “thank you” is almost inaudible. You shake your head at the sound of your own voice, hoarse and weak, and you pull yourself together, thanking them profusely and offering to buy lunch.

Frankie gives you a strong look, and then declines, explaining he’s meeting with his sister, and you don’t know what to make of it. Very little, if nothing, in his attitude, has given you a clue as to how he feels about what you told him yesterday morning.

The imperceptible glances, the kind words, the reassuring hand. It’s always been there, since the very beginning, even back in the bar, when his eyes glared at you but his words spoke another story. It might just be who he is. After all, Yovanna had said so herself, Frankie is a good man.

And then it strikes you. Nothing’s really different, because it’s not about something new. It’s about something missing. His anger is gone. And the distance that came with it.

Frankie watches as the realisation plays across your soft face. He has to get out of here.

He’s dependent on Benny to drive him home, but Benny insists that you come with them, and it is, indeed, the practical thing to do. You eventually persuade him, arguing that you need to vacuum here before, and if you were never much of a liar, the urgency helps you sound convincing.

When the door closes behind them, you let out a long, trembling breath, and feel the steely tension that has been building steadily between your shoulder blades since you came out of the shower.

You take another measured and steadying breath, stretching the strained muscles of your neck. If you hurry, you might have the time to smoke a cigarette before Benny comes back. You start collecting the mugs and glasses from the coffee table when your eyes land on the cap lying on the kitchen counter.

Standard Heating Oil.

The blue, worn-out hat fills you with a disproportionate dread. You can’t have this thing in here, god knows what you’ll do with it, tuck it under your shirt against your skin to sleep with, or worse, inhale it like a madwoman, you need it out.

You drop the dishes unceremoniously into the sink with a clatter and grab it, rushing towards the door, thinking you can still catch them downstairs, but when you open it, you collide into Frankie’s solid chest.

The cap falls to the floor when you steady yourself by placing your hands on his arms, that wrap around your waist with a bruising grip, and your feet hover above the ground when he lifts you with his combined strength and momentum and carries you across the room to pin you against the wall, the draped curtains cushioning the shock with a muffled thud.

Your brain bails on you, you struggle to make out what’s happening. You lose all your bearings and are left with nothing but sensations, burning, blinding, incandescent and dizzying, the tight grip of his left arm, his knee nudging your legs open as he presses you into the wall, moulding the shape of your body into his own, the heat from his chest against yours, the press of his right hand skating up along your side, brushing past the swell of your breast, his calloused fingers a rough caress on your collarbone, on the soft skin of your neck.

The firm muscles of his arms shudder under your palm, you moan at the scent of him enveloping you, at his commanding pull on your hair when he tilts your face to the side, at the sharp ridge of his nose crushed into your temple and the tickle of his mustache. Your splayed fingers dig into his arms when he runs his plush lips over the line of your jaw with unexpected softness.

His words are spoken into your skin, whispered with a fervor, slowly, articulately.

“I have missed you. I have missed you so fucking much.”

And he’s gone. The door shuts with a loud banging noise behind him. He’s gone and your body slumps down against the wall, quivering and cold.

****

Additional note: I threw in a little nod to Joel Miller, in there, just for fun. Did you get it? Also the gif is from this awesome FishBen set, please go check it out.

Taglist (thank you 🧡): @elegantduckturtle @mashomasho @lola766 @flowersandpotplantsandsunshine @nicolethered @littleone65 @bands-tv-movies-is-me @the-rambling-nerd @saintbedelia @pedrostories @trickstersp8 @all-the-way-down-here @deadmantis @hbc8 @princessdjarin @harriedandharassed @girlofchaos @gracie7209 @mrsparknuts

#first it’s sad then it’s HOTHOTHOT #full reblog later

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